One Rogue's Journey

So, how you gem your gear is pretty important.

You sir, are a master linguist.

I know, right? I should get paid for this.

Anyway, one of the things you have to take into consideration when gemming your gear is socket bonuses. When should you go for them? Often times a spreadsheet is your best answer to theses and many other DPS questions but I’m going to take a minute and show you how to quickly eyeball a piece of gear and make an intelligent decision.

A quick disclaimer first: The most important thing when gemming is to make sure your Meta-Gem stays active. Which for rogues, will require at least 1 red, yellow and blue gem and you should use take the opportunity to kill two birds with one gem (rim-shot) and grab a socket bonus while activating your meta whenever possible.

For this discussion I will be using the following gems to fill the various slots.

• Red – Delicate Cardinal Ruby (+20 Agi)
• Yellow – Deadly Ametrine (+10 Agi, +10 Crit)
• Blue – Shifting Dreadstone (+10 Agi, +15 Stam)

The method of calculation (quick secret, it’s addition) is the same when using other gems but for simplicity I will be using these. It should be noted that when ignoring socket bonuses you will simply be stacking the red gem of your choice (Agi, Arpen, or AP)

Now, let’s look a two pieces of gear, one of which I suggest ignoring the socket bonus and the other I suggest going for the socket bonus. Let’s find out why.

Cuirass of Calamitous Fate – 1 Yellow Socket, 1 Blue Socket, +12 AP Socket Bonus

If you go for the socket bonus:
+20 Agi, +10 Crit Rating, +15 Stam, +12 AP

If you ignore the socket bonus:
+40 Agi

So, the question is really:
+20 Agi vs +10 Crit Rating and +12 AP

So, what’s the answer? Well, 20 Agi will give you 20 AP. So far, no socket bonus is winning but what about the 10 Crit rating? How does that stack up to the 20 Agility. Not too well actually.

With that known, the abstract question of which is better:
+20 Agi vs +10 Crit Rating and +12 AP
Is actually, which is better:
+20 AP and .24% Crit Chance vs +12 AP and .21% Crit change

That’s an easy, apples to apples comparison and you can easily see that not going for the socket bonus wins. Keep in mind you don’t have to do this math every time, once you know the basics you can pretty much eyeball it (do the math to double check if you’re unsure).

Conqueror’s Terrorblade Legplates – 1 Red Socket, 1 Yellow Socket, +6 Agi Socket Bonus

If you go for the socket bonus:
+36 Agi, +10 Crit Rating

If you ignore the socket bonus:
+40 Agi

So, the question is really:
+4 Agi vs +10 Crit Rating

So:
+4 Agi vs +10 Crit Rating
Becomes:
+4 AP and .04% Crit Chance vs .21% Crit Chance

To me, the socket bonus is an easy win here.

So that’s socketing in a nutshell. Isn’t math grand?

Happy Socketing!